The first thing you'll notice is that CWOW players are much more closed towards foreigners, or perhaps shy.

There are no Chuck Norris, Murloc, or Justin Bieber jokes. Most of general chat is full of gold sellers (raids, power leveling, trades, etc.) or gold buyers.

Trolling and name calling is minimal compared to most US realms.

Raid leaders have a tendency to bring in too many healers.

Most players use cookie cutter builds and are not open to alternate builds.

Raid mates will sing karoke on raid voice chat.

Many people in game area available for hire for in-game gold to do practically anything you want (raids, power leveling, protection, scouting, delivery). It's possible to go from level 10-70 without ever spilling any blood and level very quickly.

You can purchase raid gear for gold or gamecards.

CWOW users are currently limited to Burning Crusade content, but playing with latest patches - including WOTLK talents, character balancing, level 70 glyphs, achievements, etc. There's a misconception that BC is new in China, however it's been out since 2007 (released 8 months after NA/EU). WOTLK was "expected" to be released this month (middle of Aug 2010), but it's still in limbo.

CWOW has a huge gold market. "It seems like nearly everyone is either a buyer or a seller." Because of the unique economy, many of the realms have Auction Houses that only have "enchanting materials, glyphs, and games. That's it. Click "Sword" and it's empty." Also, "I would say the Chinese are slightly more motivated (gold has real world value) and slightly more organized by working in teams to make gold). I never saw this on US realms."

Guilds are massive 300+ players than run 2-3 daily raids.

Due to many bugs in Vanilla and TBC bosses, most raids use these bugs for fast progress (~50% of bosses are bugged.)

Gold raids are the most common form of pugging, in some cases it's the ONLY form of pugging.

Player reputation is very important and well-known players will get favored spots in high level raids even on under-geared alts. However, most players will lend their characters to their friends so it's hard to know who you're really playing with.

Many of the Chinese players can speak english, and will often answer you with a "?" first to see if you type English.

Most Chinese type in English or Pinyin, or use a Chinese-to-English translation mod.

Fake Chinese ID cards are sometimes used to create accounts (can't use your own, too young, etc), so if you lose theaccount you're pretty much screwed and will not be able to recover it.

For more information, there's an English-speaking WoW Chinese community here. They can also get you started on CWOW or TWOW if you're interested. =]

Game Time Regulations

Players are required to associate their Chinese ID card to their account to prove that they are 18 years of age or older.

If you are younger than 18 years old (reflected on ID Card), you are limited to 3 hours of playing on the account. After 3 hours of playing on the account, all XP gains and loot would stop (called "Health Lock") to prevent "children" from over-playing.

If you are an adult, you can play for 18 hours per day. It's 3 six-hour sessions with a 2 hour session in between called "tired time". Children can play a total of 6 hours per day over a total of 2 sessions, with 1 session of 2 hours of "tired time" as well.

Censorship

Pretty much anything with bones or a skeletal body has been modified. The skeleton of your corpse is replaced by a little mound of dirt with a gravestone, certain icons with skulls have been replaced by box icons, skeleton NPCs have been fleshed out so they look more like zombies, decapitated head icons have been changed, blood has either been removed or recolored, and piles of bones have been replaced with sandbags.

However, all of the cosmetic changes are based on the NetEase CWOW (free) client and it's possible it use a NA clientpatch to have the same graphics as NA/EU. Almost all censorship is client side.

The9 originally implemented these changes "to promote a healthy and harmonious on-line environment." (Source) However, the changes have also been carried over to NetEase as well to satisfy the Chinese censorship review.

There's really no clear answer as to why this censorship is required. Some say that it's cultural, about respecting the dead, and that animated bones are taboo. Others say that because China is an atheist country, the mere existence of undead content indicates that there is an afterlife and contradicts the government's official position on the matter.